Is The Acolyte The Gayest Star Wars Ever? Amandla Stenberg And Creator Discuss

Star Wars’ newest live-action series, The Acolyte, takes place roughly 100 years before the events of The Phantom Menace. The series has been earning steadily high marks, due to its fresh take on the Star Wars Universe, but the show has been given a certain moniker that has confused showrunner Leslye Headland: “the gayest Star Wars yet.”

Talking to The Wrap, Headland, and star Amandla Stenberg (who plays twins on the show), explained how The Acolyte is far from the gayest Star Wars installment and how the franchise is pretty gay already.

“No, I don’t think so,” Headland said. “Yet people have told me it’s the gayest Star Wars and I’m frankly…”

“You’re offended?” Stenberg asked. “Into it,” Headland replied with a laugh.

Stenberg continued with how she saw Star Wars as pretty already gay. “I mean have you seen the ‘fits? We’d be like ‘Look how gay this is’ and send each other reference photos.”

Headland added to the discussion with a certain protocol droid’s mannerisms. “Are you telling me, with a straight face, that C-3PO is straight?” Headland continued to joke and declared that it’s now “canon” that R2-D2 is a lesbian. Deep-cut Star Wars fans might know that the first lesbian character in franchise history was actually Juhani, the Jedi Knight from the Knights of the Old Republic game. LGBTQ+ characters are still rare in Star Wars canon, but there are a few in the High Republic era that we know of.

The Acolyte follows Jedi Master Sol (Lee Jung-jae) who investigates a series of crimes that bring him to a former Padawan (Stenberg). The show also stars Charlie Barnett, Dafne Keen, Rebecca Henderson, Jodie Turner-Smith, Carrie-Anne Moss, Manny Jacinto, Dean-Charles Chapman, and Joonas Suotamo.

New episodes of The Acolyte premiere on Disney+ weekly on Tuesdays.